There had been other troubles, with a chief called Big Head wounded while on a friendly visit to Fort Kearny. The Cheyenne felt especial put upon, for by their lights they had always been amiable to white men. Even after all these bad things, they sent a delegation to see the Government Indian agent and apologized. They also returned a woman they had captured. but you see the complication was this: Indians wasn't ever organized. Them that come in to apologize wasn't the same as what killed the whites. And them that the soldiers usually punished was never the ones who had committed the outrages. The white people on who the Indians took revenge had no connection with the soldiers.
It was pretty early on that I come to realize that most serious situations in life, or my life anyway, were like that time I rubbed out the Crow: he spared me because I was white, and I killed him because I was Cheyenne. There wasn't nothing else either of us could have done, and it would have been ridiculous except it was mortal.
Thomas Berger, Little Big Man
Yesterday two blogfriends discussed Berger on Twooter, I didn't stop to think why, adding to the conversation that when I read Little Big Man when I was nineteen it was KABOOM! Today I discovered why he might have been being discussed: he died this past July 13th.
It has been years since I read Berger. I liked the Reinhart Tetrology, especially when read against Updike's Rabbit Tetrology for comparison and contrast in style, tone, themes, I liked his second historical novel, Arthur Rex, I liked some of his genre-examining novels like Who Is Teddy Villanova and Nowhere, but all failed when measured against Little Big Man. I didn't know it when I read it, but it engaged many of the concerns I encountered in Theory in grad school, especially but not limited to its examination of passing: see the excerpt above. I am about to find out if it's KABOOM! still.
- If you want one and I like you I can send you a copy.
- A friend of mine recommended Silver Apples to me. I vaguely remember the name, it sounds familiar (I think it was on the soundtrack for the Needwood Summer ePod 1979 - ask Elric), but I'd never have been able to put the sound to the name.
- Have mercy, do you have a heart?
- Osama bin Laden in the Wall Street Journal.
- The Terror War's disastrous course.
- I heard from Arthur Silber yesterday, he can really use your help, please consider throwing him the coins in your pocket.
- The true cost of a burger.
- I daydream I am.
- Thirty "essential" Emo songs? Jawbox was emo?
[constant change figures]
Lyn Hejinian
constant change figures
the time we sense
passing on its effect
surpassing things we've known before
since memory
of many things is called
experience
but what of what
we call nature's picture
surpassing things we call
since memory
we call nature's picture
surpassing things we've known before
constant change figures
experience
passing on its effect
but what of what
constant change figures
since memory
of many things is called
the time we sense
called nature's picture
but what of what
in the time we sense
surpassing things we've known before
passing on its effect
is experience
